The present invention relates to systems and methods for telemarketing, and particularly to telemarketing systems and methods for providing an incentive for prospective customers to listen to a telemarketing sales presentation.
Offering a prospective customer a reward for listening to a sales presentation is a very well known practice. When the salesperson and prospect meet face to face, the reward can be offered and accepted, and the presentation can be made as part of the same transaction. A typical example is to invite a prospect to a seminar on financial planning, coupled with an offer of free merchandise or services if the prospect attends.
With the advent of telemarketing (selling over the telephone), the salesperson and prospect need no longer meet face to face; indeed, the sales presentation may advantageously be pre-recorded. The use of pre-recorded sales presentations is very efficient, since a live salesperson is not necessary for each call to a prospect. Telemarketing, both with live salespersons and pre-recorded presentations, is used by a wide variety of organizations, both profitable and charitable, to solicit business and donations.
If a telemarketing presentation is successful, there are various options available to the telemarketing organization for the customer to make payment. For example, in the course of a live presentation, the salesperson can obtain the customer's name and address, and the telemarketing organization can then follow with a mailed invoice. The received name and address in this case can also be used as the destination of the merchandise or services purchased. A more efficient alternative, from the standpoint of revenue collection, is to bill the customer's credit card account. Thus in the case of a live presentation, the salesperson can request the prospect's credit card number in addition to his name and address. If a pre-recorded presentation is used, the customer may enter his credit card number via the touch-tone pad of his telephone. If the product or service is sold by a credit card issuer, the issuer will already have the customer's credit card number, name and address; this information then need not be provided at the time of the order.
A system of distributed telecommunications for telemarketing is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,499,289, in which telemarketing agents use a plurality of distributed system nodes but each accesses a database resident on a central system controller. The agents obtain from the database calling lists and scripts to use in conversing with the called party. The agents may thus be remotely located from the system center while the system maintains control of the calling list and other valuable information. A system for composing individualized sales presentations is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,576,951; in this patent, a hierarchy of data sources is searched to permit the marketer to compose a customized sales presentation for use with a particular called party. U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,314 describes an incentive program applicable to a network marketing (or "multi-level" marketing) system in which participants accumulate credit and/or awards posted to their individual accounts. These awards are offered by sponsoring companies to motivate participants to refer others to those companies. Such an incentive program is directed to the participants already recruited by the sponsoring companies, as opposed to a large group of unreached potential customers desired by a telemarketer.
A variation of telemarketing involves interactive voice response units (IVRUs). In a system based on an IVRU, a customer may receive pre-recorded answers to his questions, or may answer questions in a multiple-choice format without the need for a live operator to evaluate the results.
A telephonic-interface system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,120 in which a voice generator prompts an individual caller for digital responses. This data may be used in a game, contest, lottery or the like, with award points credited to the caller for correct answers. A telephone version of a television game show has been reported, wherein callers entering correct answers qualify for cash prizes.
A known problem with telemarketing is the difficulty of motivating a prospective customer to listen to a telemarketing sales presentation. Even where outbound pre-recorded telemarketing messages are permitted by law, the prospect often hangs up after realizing that the telephone call he or she has just answered is a pre-recorded telemarketing message. Furthermore, the absence of live contact makes it difficult for the telemarketer to efficiently reward the prospect for listening to the presentation.
Telemarketers have tried to overcome this sales resistance by offering prizes to called parties. For example, if the called party agrees to attend an in-person sales presentation, he may be given a prize when he comes to that presentation. Alternatively, prizes have been offered to induce persons to call a "900" number (for which generally the caller is billed) to listen to a live or recorded sales presentation. Sometimes the prospective customer is not aware he is being charged for the 900-number call when he places the call, and is dissatisfied when he learns of the charge. A system has also been reported wherein subscribers are given cash rebates for listening to advertisements while making outgoing calls. For example, a subscriber waiting for his call to be connected listens to a five-second recorded message, and may choose to listen to a longer message. The system may be programmed to play a particular advertisement based on the number called; for example, if a subscriber calls a business, he may hear an advertisement for that business's competitor. This reported system involves playing advertisements only, as opposed to concluding sales of goods or services over the telephone.
In the above-described examples, the prospective customer listening to the sales presentation or advertisement on the telephone is not rewarded immediately; the reward, if any, is instead given later in person or by mail. This makes it difficult for the telemarketer to attract and hold the prospective customer's attention. In the case of recorded sales presentations, the telemarketer cannot verify that the called party is listening, even if the call proceeds to its conclusion.